Best Practices

1. Backup your database regularly

Keeping your database backed-up is one of the most important aspects of managing Files Advanced. The Backup process can be entirely automated to help you keep your backups up to date.

Deployments with very large Files Advanced server databases may want to use a different backup and restore method than the one provided.

Deployments with databases of several gigabytes and more may require some additional configurations during the Backup&Restore process to speed it up or otherwise improve it. For assistance with your specific configuration, please contact our technical support at http://www.acronis.com/en-us/mobilitysupport/ for help and instructions.

2. We recommend that very large deployments "Vacuum" and "Analyze" their database(s) monthly

PostgreSQL databases require periodic maintenance known as vacuuming. The VACUUM command has to process each table on a regular basis to:

• Recover or reuse disk space occupied by deleted or updated rows.
• Protect against loss of very old data.
• Update data statistics and speed up index scanning.

The ANALYZE command collects statistics about the contents of tables in the database, and stores the results. Subsequently, the query planner uses these statistics to help determine the most efficient execution plans for queries.

To manually vacuum and analyze your database(s), do the following:

1. Open the Files Advanced PostgreSQL Administrator tool (it could also be called PgAdmin). You can find it in Windows Start menu, under the Files Advanced folder. Double-click on localhost to connect to your server.
2. Right-click on the acronisaccess_production database and choose Maintenance.
3. Select the VACUUM radio button and the ANALYZE checkbox.

   

   Warning! If your database is very large, the vacuum can take some time. This process should be run during periods of low load on the server.

4. Press OK.
5. When the Vacuum process finishes, click Done.
6. Close the PostgreSQL Administrator tool.

To setup automatic vacuuming, please read our article at: Automated Database Vacuuming

3. For big deployments, you should consider running a load-balanced setup or clustering Gateway servers.